Court Will Oversee Wiretap Program
The Bush administration said yesterday that it has agreed to disband a controversial warrantless surveillance program run by the National Security Agency, replacing it with a new effort that will be overseen by the secret court that governs clandestine spying in the United States.The change — revealed by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in a letter to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee — marks an abrupt reversal by the administration, which for more than a year has aggressively defended the legality of the NSA surveillance program and disputed court authority to oversee it.
Under the new plan, Gonzales said, the secret court that administers the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, will oversee eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mails to and from the United States when “there is probable cause to believe” that one of the parties is a member of al-Qaeda or an associated terrorist group.
I have opined previously that I wasn’t convinced that the program was illegal, and also I had some concerns that the regular warrent process, while a great idea in gathering evidence for prosecutions, might be unworkable when it comes to gathering signals intelligence. However, having some sort of oversight for the program is obviously a good thing. It seems to me that this is a compromise, with the FISA court overseeing the general process, but not necessarily requiring the full warrent process.
Update: Orin Kerr has looked at this, and he concludes that the FISA courts have adopted anticipatory warrents for this program. Certainly he knows a whole lot more about this subject then I do.
